TechAgility

Microsoft opens Viridian technical preview to general public

By Alessandro Perilli

After revealing that codename Viridian beta 1 will be included in Windows Server 2008 RTM, set for February 28, Microsoft published a 10-minutes demo of the technical preview included in Window Server 2008 RC0.

It’s the first time Microsoft shows Viridian to a broad audience since first demo presented at WinHEC 2006.

The video shows Viridian integration in a full version of Windows, a scenario which Microsoft didn’t plan initially, stating that virtualization capabilities would be available only on Windows Server Core 2008 Edition.

The whole video is available for download here and in streaming here.

written by dcaddick

After a wet and wild weekend camping Dugie pulls out all the stops again…

Thanks Dugie, I wasn’t aware I needed to install the 64bit version to make it work?

URLs for Windows 2008 RC0 and WSv

WSS, Virtualization September 25th, 2007

If you want to download Windows 2008 RC0 with the Windows Server virtualization preview, the URLs are below:

• Windows Server 2008 RC0 Enterprise - 2.6 Gb
• Windows Server 2008 RC0 Datacenter - 2.6 Gb

Remember to grab the 64 bit version (6001.16659.070916-1443_amd64fre_Server_en-us-KR1SXFRE_EN_DVD.iso) as it is the only version that will run WSv

John Howard has some great install primers in his post , “How to install the Windows Server virtualization role in Windows Server 2008 RC0“, a snippet is below:

more at source…

written by dcaddick

Even though we might work in IT we cannot neglect the business, after all it’s the business requirements that we strive to fulfill (isn’t it?

I strongly believe we need to be mindful of what’s going on in the wider world from a Financial context so that we can understand (sometimes even before the business does?) why projects need to be revised or canceled?

The reality is that many other countries around the world have traditionally used the USD as a basis for their own currency, but with things shaping up the way they are the Fed’s changes are not relevant to other global and local economies and so as a matter of course they will start considering to break these traditional links and this may have further consequences on the perceived value and strength of the USD

Exciting times indeed?

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright

From the Telegraph.co.uk

Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signaling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.

more at source…

written by dcaddick

From the Windows XP Embedded Team,

It seems like we just went through Daylight Saving Time (see this blog post), but that time of year is coming up again.  To help customers prepare for the upcoming changes Microsoft is hosting a Technical Review webcast today at 2:00PM Pacific time:

Technical Review for Daylight Saving Time & Time Zone Preparedness

We will host a technical product review/ summary webcast is scheduled for 2:00PM Pacific on Monday, September 24th.  This is a technical overview of resources on Microsoft products available to help customers and partners prepare for change to Daylight Saving Time and various time zones.  Information about this Webcast for customers is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_webcasts.     

Live Meeting URL for webcast on Monday, Sept 24th, 2007 @ 2:00PM PDT: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/lmevents/join?id=msft092407sa&role=attend&pw=ATN783

Daylight Saving Time Again?

written by dcaddick

So from Allessandro’s Virtualization.info he has some other interesting news…

But what is very interesting to note is his final comment

It’s interesting to note that another Dunes product, the one addressing VDI scenarios called VD-O, seems disappeared immediately after acquisition announcement.

Because not only has VD-O disappeared from their website, if you use Dunes search tool you will only find reference to it in general apart from this entry:

which by the way, no longer works, or at least you are then prompted to put in a user id and password, so I’d suspect that it won’t get you very far?

So this does beg the following questions:

• Has VMware now settled on the killer VDI Broker?
• Will this be a better buy than Propero?
• Is the MS Desktop Licensing the only thing now holding back VDI?

Release: Dunes VS-O Lifecycle 1.0

written by dcaddick

In a post by Helge Klein at IT from inside he has done some testing regarding the impact of utilizing ClearType across RDP connections and the upshot of it is that this has the potential to increase your bandwidth usage by 300% or if using 32bit colour this can be as high as 600%. Your mileage may vary- best to test extensively before you turn this on?

This is based on server 2008 CTP, June 2007 so this may improve before the official release?

colour - for my US readers this is how it is spelt in all other English speaking countries other than the US ;-))

ClearType Bandwidth Revisited - Testing 32 Bit Color Depth

written by dcaddick

So VMware’s new VDM 2.0 is ready for a Beta download - get it while it’s hot?

VDM2.0 Beta now live

From Warren Ponder: Virtual Desktop Blog: VMware VDI - VDM 2.0 Beta now live.

VDM 2.0 is a new product. Over the last few months the team has been hard at work so we can deliver on the design goals we set for this release of the broker. At this stage we are really focused on simplicity and scalability.
One of the biggest changes for the initial release from the original Propero technology is we have ported to Windows. This release is only supported on Windows 2003. …
In the coming weeks I will be sharing more on the architecture and available features. Anyone that’s interested in participating in the beta can find the registration page this URL - VDM 2.0 Press Release

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Copyright © 2007 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

written by dcaddick

I have been looking a bit deeper at the blogging side of things and investigating if it’s worth getting a bit more serious, as well as having some great ideas about creating a Social Network, so based on this I have run up quite a few virtual Servers and installed DNN (DotNetNuke), Community Server, Movabletype and Wordpress, amongst others, both in Windows and Linux flavours and I have to state that from my pitiful level of Linux knowledge creating a LAMP server is not that easy.

LAMP for the uninitiated is Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl and it was typically the PHP/Perl bit that usually frustrated me.

Anyway, so I have been doing quite a bit of research on the idea of how hard it is to create this and came across these great resources if you’re considering trying the same thing?

And there is also this huge chart at Techcrunch to start you off:
http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/white_label_social_networking_solutions_chart2.html

List of “White Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms

Social Networking goes mainstream
I was recently asked by a buddy to name off some social networking platforms that could be branded or changed as needed (that’s where that term ‘white label’ has come from). It’s somewhat relevant as Om Malik has now asked a rhetorical question if Social Network tools are just a feature of website. Overtime, like blogs, these will ‘normalize’.

What is “White Label” Software?
This is software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain. The user experience should be near seamless, therefore any company can have their own MySpace. Kindly do not submit Social Networking tools that don’t meet this criteria, as the list can extend to hundreds if not thousands of companies.

The List
Here’s a list of Social Networking platforms, or suites that you could take and rebrand, if you know of any others, please leave a comment (many of the following are from those that left comments, like Gideon who left quite a few links). Not sorted in any particular order:

BlogTronix
I met Vassil, the CEO, I think it has a chance of giving Sharepoint a run for it’s money given it’s Intranet type features

Sharepoint
Microsoft’s collaboration suite is getting social networking tools for it’s 2007 version, I’m waiting for Microsoft to call me to do a demo.

Five Across
SF company just acquired by Cisco

Community Server
I was looking at this while at a previous role, this is what the famous Channel 9 was built on, as well as Dell 1to1 and Xbox

more at source….

written by dcaddick

Welcome to the cold shower? it will be very interesting how this space shapes up as things progress in the new year with Citrix and Microsoft joining the fray?

Deeper look at VMware’s results spooks investors

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 18

When software hotshot and EMC (Symbol: EMC) spin-off VMware (VMW) went public last month at $29, demand from investors was feverish and the shares shot up 76% on their first day of trading. Since then, they’ve gained even more, peaking at $82.75 in intraday trading last week. VMware’s final IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission included preliminary results for the second quarter that looked pretty impressive including a 125% leap in net income. Yesterday, the company followed up with a routine, audited second quarter filing that repeated the same happy results. And yet VMware’s shares dropped over $4 during the day and stand at $73.19 today, down 12% from the high a week ago.

So here’s a mystery to ponder for the next hour as you await the Fed’s big announcement: if VMware already announced its second quarter results, what in its 10-Q filing yesterday caused the sell-off? I don’t think you have to look very far. Last month, VMware released its second quarter revenue, operating income and net income. There was no detail provided about expenses and cash flow. Yesterday’s filing included all the details and suddenly things look a little less great.

We already knew that the company’s revenue jumped 90%, operating income 81%, and net income 125%. Now we also see that operating cash flow increased only 43% to $85.6 million. And the rate of growth in some expense lines challenged the rates of growth of the previously revealed good stuff. Research and development expenses shot up 120% to $72 million, sales and marketing costs rose 83% to $99 million and general and administrative expenses climbed 124% to $31 million. At the bottom, the percentage of revenue eaten up by these operating expenses rose 1 percentage point to 68% from 67% a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation, an expense that tech companies like VMware prefer to back out, expense growth looks even worse, increasing by more than 2.5 percentage points of revenue. This is a trend that was visible back in the original IPO filing, as I noted in April. With looming competition from Microsoft (MSFT), Citrix (CTXS) and other big fish, anybody think VMware’s expenses are going to start sinking anytime soon?

One other worrisome piece of the VMware puzzle comes from the market’s valuation of EMC, which still owns 87% of VMware shares. That stake is worth over $20 billion today, or about half of the market’s valuation of EMC itself. Yet EMC shares have barely budged since VMware went public, rising from $18.34 on August 14 to $18.90 today, or a 3% increase. How can a company’s biggest asset almost triple in value while the market yawns? The answer lies in the shortage of VMware shares available to the market. Just like a zillion dot com bombs back in the day, there aren’t enough shares of VMware’s total available to investors yet. The market isn’t saying that EMC, a long-established company, is undervalued. It’s saying that VMware is overvalued. As more shares hit the market over the next year, that shortage will evaporate and so too will the VMware’s p/e ratio of 231.

more at source…

written by dcaddick

So this site is a little hard to navigate considering it’s in Chinese but it is worth a go, and you can always refer back to Google’s translation if you need some pointers? Still if you persevere you can generate a neat Cartoon based on a photograph of your self for IM etc.

MSN Cartoon (Beta)

written by dcaddick